[RE-wrenches] EG4

Jeff Clearwater jeffc at villagepowerdesign.com
Thu Jul 28 18:12:43 PDT 2022


Hi All

Yes I’ve been working with EG4s for some time now. I installed 30 (154KWH) on 4 Sunny Island’s in Feb and that system has been working flawlessly. I’ve also done a 4 (20.5KWWH) battery system and a 6 battery (30.7 kWH) on single SOl-ARKs.  And I’ve consulted in amd been monitoring some multi Solark systems. All work great. 

I visited the factory in Texas for a few days and helped them think about designing a rack with built in OCP. I’m friendly with James Showalter the CEO and met amd worked with the tech department. . I offered to help rewrite their battery manual but then couldn’t find the time though I am providing input. 

Their published recommended settings for Absorb and float are a bit too high. ( they just copy from the Chinese manufacturer) but on the SI system it would force the BMS into overvoltage cutoff every cycle. No harm is done as the bms protects each time but I found that setting absorb to 55.8 (with absorb time set to 1-3 hours depending on ratio of PV to KWH) and float to 53.8 works well.    I’ve found there is no reason to push LFPs past 14 v (56v) for any reason. And no reason to float much past 13.4 (54) LFPs are happiest between 15% and 95% charge (hence the 80% useable).  Pushing them to 100% every time is non productive amd can lesson lifetime. 

Also I came on strong at first insisting like Will Prowess and many others that it was essential to keep battery cable lengths the same for all parallels batts amd racks. However bench testing and real world testing has shown otherwise which can translate to hundreds of dollars in saved copper.  The BMS’s compensate for slight resistance differences. I find that individual paralleled 48V batteries may vary as much as 5-10% in SOC during any one point on a cycle but the ones showing lower at the top end of the cycle quickly make up for it at the lower end of the cycle. So in any one cycle every battery cycles between the same values even if some are pulling the weight at the higher SOCs - the others will then catch up due to the BMSs doing their thing. In fact we saw no correlation with battery cable length as differences in cell manufacture and perhaps temperature outweighed any effect causes by unequal cable lengths. ( like 3-4 feet more on 2/0 used for paralleled racks)

I’ve also discovered you can monitor 14, 28, 42 batteries if you’ld like by running their battery software on multiple ports connected to multiple screens (running the same program on two different ports of a pc)  so up to 14 batts per port. I then use remote viewer software to view the dedicated laptop I leave at each job. 

If you parallel more than one rack you should be providing OCP between racks and the bus bar you provide. I’ve been using Victron fused bus bar systems but they are expensive. Hence why I’m working with Signature Solar to provide OCP per rack. 

I find James amd the folks at Signature Solar to be great folks with a great vision amd devotion to bring the price of solar eat down while providing quality. 

That said I have yet to take the leap to the EG4 inverters (or any of the super cheap Chinese all-in-ones like MPP) I might try one in an RV but for now am sticking with SolArks. That said there are many companies working to bring the quality of the DIY all-in-ones up to speed. I’ve also installed StorzPower (Sol Arks with flashed ROM) and they are working on their own inverter to meet the need as well.  

I’ve been enjoying watching the original Hippy Tech meets Prepper tech meets DIY tech. Soon I think the right quality/ price point will be reached amd we’ll all be installing much less expensive systems. Sol Ark and SMA take note!  Bit it’s up to us installers to make sure that quality is up to snuff. I ding the sever rack batteries (EG4, StorzPower,SOK,Jakiper, etc to be quality and reliable. They all use the same prismatic cells. Fortress, SimpliPhi, Discover take note!  Less than $300/KWH is here on batts. Less than .50/watt or even lower on high surge -off grid capable all-in-one inverters is fast on its heels! 

Best,

Jeff Clearwater
CA license “#852360
C-46, C-10
Village Power Design
413-559-9763





Sent from my iPhone

> On Jul 28, 2022, at 12:50 PM, Dave Tedeyan via RE-wrenches <re-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org> wrote:
> 
> 
> Hi all, 
> 
> Does anyone have any experience with EG4 products? I am doing an off-grid consultation for someone who plans on getting EG4 inverter and lithium batteries. The equipment seems so cheap, yet appears to be somewhat legit. They do at least have UL1741 listing. But their 6500w inverter/charger also takes PV power directly and goes for $1250. And their 48V 100AH battery is only $1500. I am curious if anyone has used this stuff and if it is actually legit.
> 
> Cheers,
> Dave
> 
> -- 
> 	
> Dave Tedeyan, P.E.
> Owner | Sungineer Solar
> p: he | him | his
> a: 1653 Slaterville Rd. | Ithaca, NY 14850
> w: www.sungineersolar.com
> c: (607) 288-2898
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